DUBAI // A Filipino who choked his girlfriend to death following a lovers' quarrel will spend 15 years in prison, a court decided this morning.
Prosecutors had sought the death penalty for the 36-year-old driver E G before presiding Judge Hamad Abdel Latif of the Dubai Criminal Court of First Instance.
E G broke down in tears when the charges were read in August last year. He told the court that he did not intend to kill Emma Angos Cambalon because he loved her.
He also told the court last year that a lovers' quarrel erupted between the two, but then he asked for a Tagalog translator to complete his testimony.
The driver was charged by the Deira prosecutor of choking Ms Cambalon to death with either a cloth or a nylon string while she sat in the passenger seat of his car and he was in the back seat. Ms Cambalon's body was found laying bare, dumped near a villa behind al Bustan Centre in al Tawar on March 26.
According to a police investigator, no identification was found on the victim. After a task force was initiated, E G was brought in for questioning, and he confessed.
"He said that the two had an argument, and he strangled her with his belt, then placed her in the car and dumped her after taking away all her identifications," said the CID lieutenant.
A forensic specialist at Dubai Police told prosecutors that the woman was murdered inside the car.
The specialist said that scratch marks were present on her arms, proving that she struggled to fight the assailant while being choked.
He said that Ms Cambalon died within minutes.
Ms Cambalon, a 35-year-old worker from the Philippines, was the mother of four: a 17-year-old boy and three girls aged 15, 12 and eight.
The former housemaid had been in Dubai for six years, but was an illegal resident since absconding from her employer in 2007, according to police.
It took police four weeks to identify Ms Cambalon. They were able to identify her only after a friend came forward.
Once police identified Ms Cambalon, they placed her neighbourhood under surveillance. Police said EG was spotted leaving a house, carrying a suitcase, and a search revealed that it was full of the dead woman's clothes.
E G will be deported after serving his prison term.
salamir@thenational.ae
